The United Auto Workers pushed a major escalation in its 28-day old strike Wednesday, then sat down at the table with representatives from Stellantis on Thursday.
On Wednesday, union leadership added some 8,700 workers at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant to the picket lines, an unexpected move that represented a significant expansion of the strike. Some 34,000 autoworkers from Detroit’s three automakers are now on picket lines, halting production at Ford’s largest and most profitable plant in the world.
“Here’s to hoping talks at Stellantis today are more productive than Ford yesterday,” UAW President Shawn Fain said Thursday in a post to X (formerly Twitter).
The Kentucky Truck Plant builds F-Series Super Duty trucks and a pair of SUVs: the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator, according to a report in The Detroit News. Those products generate about $25 billion in revenue for the Blue Oval each year, according to Ford.
The strike there is expected to impact production at more than a dozen other Ford plants, not to mention suppliers whose production is tied to the facility.
According to The News, Kentucky Truck Plant is supplied by Ford’s Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti Charter Township; stamping plants in Dearborn, Chicago and Buffalo; engine plants in Cleveland, Mexico and Windsor; Sharonville Transmission Plant in Ohio; Sterling Axle Plant in Sterling Heights; another plant in Dearborn that supplies suspension parts, truck axles, stampings, tire and wheels, frames and other parts for Super Duty trucks; and Michigan Assembly Plant and integral stamping in Wayne, according to Ford.
The call to strike KTP came after the UAW claimed Ford “refused to make further movement in bargaining.”
“We have been crystal clear, and we have waited long enough, but Ford has not gotten the message,” Fain said in a statement. “It’s time for a fair contract at Ford and the rest of the Big Three. If they can’t understand that after four weeks, the 8,700 workers shutting down this extremely profitable plant will help them understand it.”
Ford has called the move “grossly irresponsible” and pointed to its most recent offer to the union. The offer includes a 23% wage increase over the length of the contract, a three-year progression to the top of the wage scale, restoration of the cost-of-living adjustment formula that was suspended in 2009, and conversion within 90 days of temporary workers to permanent status, among other contract improvements.
Ford said Thursday it had “reached its limit” in negotiations, according to multiple reports.
